


judar cooking class

by Musta_aurinko



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Fluff, Judar's home village, Judar-centric, M/M, Post-Canon, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:53:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21722530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Musta_aurinko/pseuds/Musta_aurinko
Summary: After having a fight with Hakuryuu, Judar thinks of a way to apologize.
Relationships: Judal | Judar/Ren Hakuryuu
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	judar cooking class

**Author's Note:**

> i always wondered what kinds of fics i'd write if i wrote any, and now i know: it's silly and fluffy. that's all you'll find here.

Judar knew that Hakuryuu had a lot of work. He had fully immersed himself in helping Kougyoku rule the empire to the best of his ability, which meant that his days were full of boring meetings and paperwork. Well, boring to Judar at least. Hakuryuu seemed to enjoy the responsibility. Still, asking him to drop it for a moment wasn’t too much, was it? Okay, Judar could have approached that subject in a more considerate way. In his defence, consideration wasn’t exactly his strong suit. That doesn’t mean that Judar had wanted for the situation to escalate into a shouting match, though. Maybe it was the stress built up over time that finally burst from its steams, but a relatively trivial matter quickly turned into a full-blown fight. 

Both said cruel things to each other in the heat of the moment they didn’t probably really mean, but what is done is done. It was when Hakuryuu accused Judar of being a frivolous person with no sense of duty that Judar had had enough. For a second he felt like snapping back with something equally venomous, but by some miracle that surely occurred only once in a millennium, he only bristled and flew away. A great decision in hindsight as he didn’t actually want to hurt Hakuryuu any more than he already had during that exchange of... harsh words. It was the knowledge that what Hakuryuu had described was exactly the type of person he hated that had Judar feeling extra bad. It really hurt. 

So that was a few days ago. The palace grounds were pretty vast, so they had successfully avoided each other this entire time. Judar had gone back to sleep in his old room that still stored many of his items and clothes he rarely used. It had been but a few days, and Judar was already feeling like he couldn’t take it anymore. The tension and guilt weighed him down, and he wanted nothing more than to solve the situation and go back to how things usually were. Even still, apologizing felt like a very uncomfortable idea. It was not something that he’d normally ever agree to do. But surely Hakuryuu deserved that? How could he ever go about apologizing without making it awkward and cringy? 

Judar stared at the soup he was eating. Normally he’d eat Hakuryuu’s cooking at least a couple of times a week whenever the prince had spare time for that, but this week had been filled with food from the palace kitchens. Food was something Hakuryuu offered him, but what exactly did Judar give to him in return? Was there something special _Hakuryuu_ would like to eat? An idea started forming in his head. 

It was a pretty bad one. And one he had no idea how to make happen. Since Hakutoku, Hakuyuu and Hakuren were dead, the only person apart from Hakuryuu who knew what the pastry that Judar was after was like, was Hakuei. And Hakuei wasn’t exactly famous for her culinary skills. Infamous, maybe... 

With no other option left, Judar made his way to Hakuei’s quarters in the palace. He floated past Seishun, who was eyeing him suspiciously. Completely understandable, but today, Judar was not up to his usual pranks. He found Hakuei in one of the rooms and caught her attention by knocking on the doorpost. Hakuei turned around to face him. 

“Judar? What brings you here?” In the past, Hakuei had always referred to Judar as either “magi” or “lord priest”. Judar had lowkey hated it. He was fine with being addressed to respectfully, but because he didn’t really have any friends who’d speak to him casually in contrast, it just made him feel lonely. Kougyoku didn’t count, because she wasn’t Judar’s friend. 

But now, Hakuei was making a conscious effort to be more casual with Judar. Judar was making a conscious effort to be... not as impolite to Hakuei as he possibly could. And it was all for Hakuryuu’s sake. Hakuei and Judar had never been close by any metric (and Hakuryuu of the past would’ve probably flipped his shit if they had), even when Judar had taken Hakuei to a dungeon. Hakuei was a strong person with the qualities of a king vessel, just like her brothers, but Judar had also had the ulterior motive in _maybe_ being able to convince Hakuryuu to come with him as well if his beloved sister had. It hadn’t worked. 

Hakuei had always felt a little concern, perhaps, towards Judar. She hadn’t known where he had come from, a seven-year-old child with no parents or other family in sight. Still, she had trusted her mother, who was ultimately responsible for Judar. Judar had impressive powers that could help Kou Empire reach the goal her father and brothers had had, and Hakuei had ended up keeping a respectful distance to the ill-behaved, spoiled kid. 

It would’ve been easy for Hakuei to blame Judar for what had happened to Hakuryuu years ago. That was what some had thought at the time: the black magi had tricked the youngest prince into falling and was manipulating him. It would’ve been easy for Hakuei to take that mindset, blame Judar for everything and see Hakuryuu as fully innocent. However, she knew that that couldn’t be further from the truth. It had been Hakuryuu who had taken the initiative, and Judar had happily followed his every order. Although Hakuei and Hakuryuu had discussed about it, the topic of their mother and everything that had gone down was still a bit of a difficult one. Hakuei felt guilty for not having been there for Hakuryuu, and weird knowing that it was _Judar_ , out of all people, who had. 

“Ren lüdui. Teach me how to make it”, Judar answered, inviting himself into the room. 

“What happened?” came Hakuei’s immediate reaction. She was catching on way quicker than Judar had anticipated. 

“Nothing important, just... I don’t know the ingredients. Or the recipe. But you do.” 

“And so does Hakuryuu.” 

Judar made the irritated expression of “please woman just play along for now”. 

Hakuei smiled a little. “Alright, follow me and we can make it together.” 

The rest of the morning was spent baking. Hakuei did everything first and recited all the steps out loud, while Judar tried to copy everything she did to a T. It wasn’t awkward at all, as Hakuei was a good conversationalist who could keep up a casual discussion the entire time. When they were ready, Hakuei began eating her creations contently, and Judar also bit into one of the buns. It tasted absolutely disgusting. Hakuei really had no idea how to balance the ingredients. 

But it was still a step forward! At least now he some of an idea of what these lüduis were made of. If he just tried a few times with different combinations, he was surely going to get it right. With the help of magic to speed up the process, he spent good multiple hours at it. So what was that step again? Really should have told Hakuei to write it all down... It was not working out at all. If Judar had had a table in front of him, it would have now been flipped out of frustration. He flew out of the window, shot a few lightning blasts randomly in anger, and flew away. Someone yelled angrily after him. Tsk. 

Judar didn’t initially have any destination in mind and was simply flying around to cool off. In any other situation he would have given up already. No, he wouldn’t even have started in the first place. Trying to be a considerate person was really exhausting. Without thinking much about it, Judar had already made his way towards the north, near the mountains. And if he was already there, why not make a little visit to his village? 

It is late afternoon, and there are many people on the streets making their ways home. Well, many and many, it’s a very small village. The kind where everyone knows each other, or at least knows someone who knows. Passers-by recognize him and greet with smiles. He did live there for many months, after all, and his parents were liked members of the community. Most of the village’s previous inhabitants had died 24 years ago in Al-Thamen's attack. A few survived by luck, and some because they were out-of-town at that moment. The smaller villages around there all cooperated with each other, and thus people had relatives in each. It had taken many years, but eventually the survivors and many of the relatives of the deceased ones had started an endeavour to rebuild the village. The place that had been a mere graveyard for years was filled with life once again as fields and houses were made. 

It was not often that new faces would pop up around there, so when Judar first arrived at the village, many approached him with curiosity. Then with surprise, when Judar said that he was born there. After that, it seems that the pieces started falling to place for some, as they claimed to recognize Judar’s features, reminiscent of his supposed mother’s. Judar couldn’t confirm either way, he didn’t know who his parents were. But apparently that woman had given birth not long before the fire, and the remains of the baby were never found. It turned out that Judar had living relatives. When avenging himself, his parents and his village was his only focus, the thought that people usually had more relatives than their parents and siblings hadn’t even crossed Judar’s mind. 

“Judar, you should have warned us in advance that you were going to visit! We could’ve prepared a fancier meal”, Judar’s aunt, his mother’s sister, said when she spotted Judar on the streets. 

“Well, it was kind of a spontaneous decision.” 

“That’s fine.” Judar walked with her to her house, where a group of women were preparing a meal for a large group. People around here preferred to eat their dinners at a long table with multiple families present. Quite a contrast to the lonely peach meals of Judar’s past. He sat on a bench watching people go in and out when someone sat next to him. 

“How are you, sweetheart?” 

“Fffine”, and a glance in her direction. Having relatives was one thing but having a living grandmother was on an entirely new level. 

“It is nice of you to come for a visit. Whatever it is that bothers you, you can always tell us about it, you know that, right?” That had to be the world’s most gentle voice. 

“Do I have something written on my forehead or is it that obvious?” First Hakuei and now this. 

“Not once have I seen you this quiet.” 

Judar sighed. Then there was silence. Well, this is what grandmothers were supposed to do, weren’t they? Have concern for their loved ones, make sure you never forget to eat, spoil children with candy, bake p-- 

Wait a minute. 

Judar turned to look at his grandma with a gleam in his eye. 

“You can bake, right? That’s an old lady skill, so it must come to you naturally? Even from an incomplete recipe?” All hope wasn’t lost, after all! 

Like Judar had expected, his grandma had never heard of a lüdui. But that mattered little with the knowledge he had accumulated from Hakuei. 

“There’s no need to stress out so much. Regardless of the end product, the most important thing is the sentiment. To show your feelings”, his grandmother said while they were in the process of turning the recipe into something actually edible, the before-promised meal forgotten. 

“Grandma”, Judar said, “that’s a load of bullshit. Sentiments matter fuck all if it tastes like deep-fried dirt.” 

“Well, I am sure that Prince Hakuryuu would understand.” 

“Who said that this is about him?” 

A pointed look. 

“Yeah okay, it’s about him. I just...”, vague hand movements. 

She patted him on the shoulder with her floury hand. Ew. 

“If he’s worthy enough to deserve all this fussing over things, then he’d better appreciate the effort. And if he doesn’t, he’ll come to regret it.” 

“That’s more scary than reassuring.” 

“I trust your judgement, so I’m sure there is no need to worry. He seemed such a polite and reasonable gentleman when he visited here earlier. You should bring him over again.” 

Should he? Judar had taken Hakuryuu to visit his parents’ graves, but that was also because he hadn’t really felt comfortable enough going alone. And then that place had had a bodiless grave for him as well, which is how they found out his birth name, and Judar thought it was funny that he had two graves already but was still very much alive. As if you could get him killed that easily! But forcing Hakuryuu to spend time with his frankly quite lively family was different from that. 

“What I am saying is, we approve of him and when, whatever day you decide get ma--” 

“THAT, is not a conversation I’m having right now wheredoidumpthesesesameseeds??” 

It was already night-time when Judar got back to Rakushou. His objective had succeeded, and who knew that grandmas could be so useful? Judar contemplated finding Hakuryuu right then, but on second thought, it was so late that Hakuryuu was probably sleeping already. He tended to wake up at ass o'clock most mornings anyway. 

Except there was a surprise Hakuryuu waiting for him in front of his old room. Hakuryuu turned to him as Judar approached. 

“Judar, I--” 

“Sorry about earlier!” Judar blurted out while pretty much shoving the lüdui-filled box right to his face. 

“What is this?” Hakuryuu asked and opened the lid. 

“If you laugh, I’ll smash them to your face so it’s covered in lotus paste and who’s laughing then, I bet you’d look so stupid”, Judar started prattling defensively out of pure nervousness. 

Hakuryuu did smile and chuckle a bit, but that was at Judar’s reaction. “This is, um”, he got something out of his pocket, “I also wanted to apologize. I shouldn’t have said what I said earlier, and it was rude of me to react like that. Forgive me.” Hakuryuu handed the object to Judar, and Judar took it to inspect it. 

It was a wooden comb with very intricate carvings. If one looked at it long enough, they could see a pattern almost like fluttering rukh. It was beautiful and made with care. 

“I’m not exactly an expert at that either, but I felt like I wanted to compensate somehow, so... I guess we had the same idea...” And like so often when a difficult situation gets solved, all the worrying started to seem silly. Everything could’ve easily been dealt with through speaking alone, but this wasn’t a bad option either. Judar put the comb in his hair, where it looked like an ornament. 

Hakuryuu turned to the box still in his hand and picked up one of the pastries. “Are these... lüduis?” he asked and bit into it. “It tastes actually good. How did you manage this with Hakuei?” 

“I didn’t. Had to think of another way...” 

When the two were making their way back to Hakuryuu’s room which was actually the room of them both at this point, Judar suddenly brought up his family. The earlier conversation back at the village was still in his mind, so he decided to suggest to Hakuryuu: “We should go there some day, you know? Like, visit together. And I’d introduce you to them properly.” 

“Sure, I’d love to go and meet them”, Hakuryuu sounded very pleased at this. Who would’ve thought? 

“You sure?” 

“Yes. I know they are important to you, so I’d like to get to know them as well.” 

“... alright”, Judar felt like his face was heating up a bit, and thus turned it out of Hakuryuu’s sight. 

Finally in bed, Judar flung his arm around Hakuryuu’s shoulders and clung onto him, but Hakuryuu didn’t mind and set his arm around Judar’s as well, and like that they fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> the idea of judar having a living grandmother kills me
> 
> also lüdui (碌堆) was a palace food during Tang dynasty (which Kou is based on)


End file.
